What Might Have Been
by Stephantom
Summary: “Of all the words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: it might have been.” John Greenleaf Whittier. How different would Erik's life have been if he hadn't been born deformed?
1. Birth

**Author's Note:** God it's been a long time since I've written a phanphic. Or a fic in general. Or anything. ... But last night, around 3:00 in the morning, after seeing the Phantom movie, the idea for this phic came to me. It occured to me that the real tragedy of Erik is not that he is a wonderful, kind and loving person that is just misunderstood and villified because he is ugly - the tragedy is that he _isn't _a wonderful, kind and loving person, but he _could _have been, had he been given the chance. Now, this may turn out to be quite boring and predictable, but I will try very hard to avoid that... And it's your job to let me know how that's going!

Standard disclaimer applies. Credit goes to Leroux, and Webber and Kay.

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Suddenly the dark, candlelit room was filled with noise and life, as the sound of an infant's crying burst into the air. Madeleine dropped her head back against the pillow and shuddered, shutting her eyes tightly with relief and gasping for air as the pain subsided. She smiled through her tears and attempted to sit up. Her baby... Her baby was alive, and so was she... 

_The nursemaid wiped the infant off with care and wrapped it in a cloth, as the strong, hungry wails continued. Madeleine stretched out her weak arms and the girl gently handed the warm bundle over. The crying ceased as the woman held her child to her breast, cradling the head gently._

"_He's a beautiful boy, Madame," said the nursemaid._

_Maudeleine's smile was serene and dazed as she nodded slowly, trying to memorize every delicate feature on her son's face. She raised a hand slightly to stroke the wonderfully soft, smooth skin of his cheek. His eyes opened and looked up at her, pale and bright and blue.  
_

"_Little Eric," she breathed. "My son."_

_It was a sensation so thrilling and incredible, to know that she had created that little body in her arms, that she had brought this human being into the world. __She didn't know how much time passed as she lay there with him in her arms. The moment seemed to hold all moments within it. _

_Madeleine's half-closed eyes fluttered open at the sound of a deep, awed sigh from across the room. She grinned as she saw her husband standing just inside the room._

_"Look, Eric," she whispered to the child. "It's your Papa."_

_Eric Ténébreux moved slowly to his wife's side and joined her on the edge of the bed. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and leaned over gently kiss her forehead, sweeping sweaty strands of dark hair out of her eyes. "Isn't he amazing?" she whispered, her eyes never leaving the infant. Eric smiled warmly at his namesake, brushing a finger agaosmt one of the boy's little fists and watching with delight as the tiny fingers wrapped around it tightly. _

"_Amazing," he concurred, shaking his head in disbelief._

_So it might have been... _

The nursemaid, no stranger to births, grimaced at the sight of the blood-and-slime-coated infant. She began to carefully clean him up, dabbing at his face with a soaked towel. But she couldn't quite seem to get his face clean… And then she realized.

Madeleine's head shot up from the pillow at the sound of the nursemaid's shriek.

"What?" she cried in alarm, trying to lift her weak body to a sitting position. "What is it? What's wrong?"

The girl looked up at her mistress, her face white. She tried to speak but found no words.

"Give me my baby!" Madeleine shouted.

At a loss, the girl picked up the unnatural creature and brought it to its mother, carrying it at arms length, her eyes turned away. Its screams seemed to become more shrill and urgent every moment.

Madeleine took the warm bundle into her lap, eager to soothe him. She lifted his head tenderly to feed him, but her heart stopped at the sight of the grey, twisted, sunken countenance that stared back at her. The air left her lungs in a loud gasp as her hands released him of their own volition. He fell onto the bedspread with a soft thud, arms flailing wildly, fingers curling and twisting in confusion and desperation, his cries still filling the room. That was not her baby! Panic seized Madeleine and she screamed at the changeling, swatting at him frantically and struggling to move to the edge of the bed.

Her husband came bursting into the room, demanding to know what was happening. She looked up at him, the shock still plain on her face, silently imploring him to do something_—anything!—_to erase this nightmare. Eric Ténébreux's eyes widened in horror at the sight that met his eyes. Unable to make sense of the madness before him, he simply shook his head slowly in pained disbelief and backed slowly out of the room. Madeleine's screams grew more panicked as she realized that he would do nothing, that there was nothing he could do.

This was a mistake; this was a nightmare. This was not how it was meant to be at all.

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Sorry the beginning is so short. I feel it's really a prologue of sorts, just setting up the rest of it. About the name-Erik says in Leroux that he gained it by chance, so I don't think it's what his parents originally named him, or planned to name him, but I couldn't bring myself to call him anything else... So he'll be Eric, which is the french spelling anyway. 


	2. The Music Box

**Author's Note: **Thanks for the encouragement, everyone who reviewed. I'm glad you like the idea. I'm playing around with the structure a little bit. If anyone has any opinions on what the most affective method of juxtaposing the alternate lives, that would be helpful. I probably will use different methods for different chapters, however. Well, anyway, here's the second chapter. Hope you like it._  
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_The tiny ballerina spun slowly to the sound of a simple, tinkling melody. A shaft of sunlight poured onto her through the window, reflecting off of her painted porcelain features. The boy watched, his chin resting against his hands which lay flat on the vanity, just tall enough to reach. His head lolled to the side and he closed his eyes, glorying in the comfort of the familiar tune and the feel of the sun against his face._

The music box slowed and came to a halt, and he opened his eyes. He studied the little box through the cut holes in the cloth that served as a mask, before reaching his hands up to snatch it. Pieces of jewelry flew out and onto the floor as he dropped to sit cross-legged on the floor. He stared intently at the little handle on the box's side, then at the wheels within it. His nimble fingers went to work, testing and unscrewing whatever he could, unable to resist his curiosity. Why did the girl dance, and where was the music coming from?

Just then, he heard footsteps outside the door and looked up with a frightened gasp.

_The sound of the music box had given away his hiding spot—Madeleine had been wondering where he had wandered off to. She smiled and opened the door to the master bedroom, only to find him looking up guiltily from the wreckage of what was once her jewelry box._

His mother stood framed in the doorway, her eyes wide with outrage.

"_Oh! Eric…" she sighed angrily. "Eric, what have I told you about playing with things without Mama's permission?"_

"What," she hissed, "are doing?"

_His shoulders dropped. "I just wanted to see how it worked."_

"_Well then, you should have come and asked me! Or better yet, waited for Papa to come home!" She knelt down to sweep the pieces he had taken apart into her hand._

He sat frozen, unable to answer as she glared at him, the accusation and loathing in her dark blue eyes cutting into him.

"Well? What were you thinking, little monster!"

He let out a soft whimper, his face crumpling as he tried not to cry.

"_I just hope Papa knows how to fix this..."_

"_I can put it back to—"_

"_No!" _

_His blue eyes filled with tears, though they did not fall. She bit her lip, determined to stay firm._

"_You may help your father with it later tonight, if he agrees, but I forbid you to touch it until then." _

_He hung his head sadly and she sighed._

"You freak! Sneaking around the house, touching things in my room!" She grabbed the music box from him angrily. "This was _my _music box! And now it's broken!" She began to cry, feeling completely helpless and irrationally upset by the sight of the music box dismantled in her hands. It suddenly seemed as if all the happy years of her childhood, and all her dreams of motherhood, had been held within that box.

Seeing his mother's tears, the boy began to cry too_.  
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_"Eric, I know you think you can do anything but you must learn that you can't do everything on your own." She held his chin in her hand. "Even geniuses can't simply go playing with things that don't belong to them. You don't want to break other people's things, do you? I've had this since I was a little girl, and if it can't be put back together, I will be very sad. Do you understand?"_

_His eyes widened and he nodded._

"_Good."_

She sank to the ground, overcome. Why did he have to destroy everything? If it hadn't been for him, her husband would never have left her. Everything would have been different. "What could have possessed you..." she whispered through her tears, not expecting an answer. She stopped, chilled by her own words. Possessed indeed! _Why?_ Why had this _thing_ come out of her?

_She ran her thumb over his cheek softly and leaned forward to kiss his head. _

_"There, don't cry. It's alright now."_

_He sniffed and smiled valiantly. She picked him up and hummed the song from the music box. He sighed happily, head resting against her shoulder, glad that no matter what the fate of the glass ballerina, the music would not stop._

With an anguished cry, Madeleine hurled the music box at him. The young boy's sobs filled the room and she covered her face with her hands.

"Get out!" she shouted, not wanting to hear.

He did not hesitate; he leapt to his feet and ran from the room.


End file.
